Tales of a little but growing Norwegian-American family

(Part of) Why we’re moving

I went up and down one hundred and seventy stairsteps before 8 a.m. this morning. It is now 3:30 p.m. and the tally is more or less five hundred and twenty. 520. Or %@= if you a) keep the caps lock on, or are b) describing how it feels. I realize that is probably like 10 minutes on the stairmaster at the gym, but going to the gym before breakfast? Not wise. And should DEFINITELY not be mandatory.

Believe it or not, I love this house. I love the rounded corner in the hallway downstairs. I love the huge and impractical chest of drawers that houses the sink in our tiny bathroom. I love that when it’s clean, our bedroom feels light and airy like a summer beach house.

I love the textured wallpaper, the original wood floors, the fact that I can always hear where the kids are.

I love the small meadow that is our back yard, the cherry tree, the bleeding heart, the few roses that I haven’t managed kill with severe neglect.

But mostly I love that we brought two of our babies home to this house. I love that the close quarters keep us close together but that the multiple levels give us places to separate.

But the stairs. This is the first time I’ve ever kept track of the number of times I go up and down, kitchen to bathroom, living room to bedroom, play room to dining room to bathroom, veranda to the yard, bedroom to washing machine.

I’m exhausted. My daily caloric intake does not support this kind of activity — especially not in combination with breast feeding and breathing. For the friends and family that see pictures of us and whisper to each other wondering about my health and current clothes size, I KNOW. We are not starving. I am eating all day long.

On the upside, my legs have never been so toned.

ANYWAY — we’re moving. (!) Stairs or no stairs, we’ve outgrown this duplex. I am carefully pinning all kinds of hopes onto our new house. A new layout = more energy, less clutter, more guests. Not thinking about whether or not our crying, jumping, running, singing, NORMAL kids are disrupting the neighbor on the other side of the wall = the removal of pretty much the only regular stressor in my life. A kitchen we can prepare food AND eat in = less unobserved kid time at the table = less time for them (Cai Ruben) to climb onto the table or dunk an loose objects into their (Emil Birk’s) water glass. These are my hopes, anyway.

My biggest concern?

That I’ll find something to complain about in the new house, something to blame any residual discontentment on. (And that I’ll fall down the stairs holding while holding someone and cause serious injury before we move.)

It’s been so heavy lately — active, willful boys in an environment that I can’t figure out how to make safe for them; boys at ages where they all need me for something different at the same time on different levels of the house. Hearing my voice be angry and shouty more often then not, grieving each day that passes that I couldn’t or didn’t or wouldn’t fully enjoy for what it was. It’s the standard motherhood rut, right? The one that I’ve managed to avoid for quite a while?